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Ranking Spider-Men

Jul 142017

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I did it with Batmen; I can do it was Spider-men. Once again, animated versions confuse matters, so I’m sticking with live action.

One big difference between Spider-Man and Batman is that the secret identity is key with Bats, but not with Spidey. Batman and Bruce Wayne are different. Peter Parker is Spider-Man. He can relax as Spider-man, but his sense of humor, outlook and general persona doesn’t change. If an actor gets Peter Parker, chances are he gets Spider-Man.

But Peter Parker is a nearly impossible character to get right as he makes less sense than Batman, and that’s saying something. OK, what’s wrong with Peter? Well, he is the Marvel standard bearer for having real world problems. He’s just a regular teenager. He’s a little nerdy, so gets bullied. He’s not cool. He comes from a lower middle class family that is just trying to get by. OK. Oh, and to go with that slight nerdy reputation, he happens to be the smartest human being who has ever existed, and the greatest engineer—the web shooters are just the start of what he creates and he made those with no money. (Really, how does he manufacture that stuff?) He’s way, way, way too smart to be a regular teenager. He would never have been just some high school student. And he’s also the worlds greatest tailor. In fact, this average kid can pretty much do everything. He’s a fantasy for adults remembering their childhood and thinking what teen’s want. He’s even witty. He’s too perfect a human for his story. He’s a superhero without the spider. And that’s just too many coincidences: the guy who happens to be bitten by a radioactive spider also happens to be able to design and produce an amazing webbing material and also happens to be able to create fantastic web shooting devices. Huh.

Part of the problem is he was made up of other heroes. He has Batman’s motivation. But he has Superman’s folksy guardians to teach him how to be good. He has to be haunted, and also not haunted at all. He’s got to be jokey and fun to be around while simultaneously being overly pure and morose. He is the biggest star of Marvel comics, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that he’s been everything at one time or another. For a film, you just have to choose what parts to take. Unfortunately, comic book people are purists, and want it all. You can’t have it all.

So, how have the five live action versions of Spidey worked out? Let’s take a look. (Note: I’m not counting cameos for this list)

#5 Nicholas Hammond (The Amazing Spider-Man—1977-1979)

Nicholas Hammond spiderman What if Peter Parker was just dull? How about solving the problem of Peter Parker being too many things by making him not much of anything. This very ‘70s Spider-Man is uninteresting in and out of costume. Not unlike the TV Captain America of the time that is also painful to watch, this Spider-Man is true blue in the dullest sense. Hammond is 27, which isn’t as big a problem as it will be up this list, as Parker isn’t a teen and he doesn’t deal with teenage problems. When not politely looking for evil-doers, he’s acting like what people with no connection to physics imagine a physics grad student might be like.

His suit isn’t anything special, but not bad enough to lower the already low level of the show. Scuttling up walls is his main power. He rarely uses his webbing. Effects were not on his side, nor was fight chorography.

J. Jonah Jameson is the only member of Spidey’s comic book support staff that makes it to the show. David White does a reasonable job in the pilot, though his Jameson isn’t as unpleasant as fans are used to. He was replaced by Robert F. Simon, who gets my vote for the second best in that role.

Superman changed the way superheros were treated on the big and small screen. This Spider-Man predates that hero, and it shows. Everything is cheap. The villains are standard criminals and spies, and it is all boring.

#4 Tobey Maguire (The Spider-Man Trilogy—2002-2007)

tobey spider With the Maguire Spider-Man, they dealt with the “Spider-Man is everything” problem by dropping out Peter’s humor and wit as well as personal strength and maturity, and decreasing his intelligence to near human levels. He’s still a bit too bright for an average high school nerd, but at least he’s not inventing webbing materials or designing web shooters (although he’s still a world-class tailor). This version dealt almost exclusively with teen Peter and fantasy fulfillment teen Peter. Not only is he a teenager, but all of the themes and all of his issues are those of a teenager. His body is going through changes. He rebels and learns a painful lesson. He’s trying to find his place in the world. He feels lost, suffocated, and alone. He has a puppy love for a girl that he hardly knows (we hardly know her) merely because she is pretty and is nearby, and tries to impress her in immature ways; he then spends three films breaking up and getting back together with her. He is constantly searching for father figures that then turn into step-father figures that then turn into villains. Well, except for the villain part, that’s teenage life.

And to play that we get twenty-seven-year-old Tobey Maguire. Maguire has the uncomfortable bit down, but I wonder if he could have passed for a teen when he was one. He looks like the parent of a teen. If this guy showed up in a classroom, the teacher would either assume it was for a parent-teacher conference or she’d call the police to deal with the pedophile. I wince when in the second film a man on the train sees the unmasked Peter and remarks, “He’s just a kid; no older than my son.” I suppose that would be an OK statement in the speaker was gray-haired and retired.

Look, you can have inappropriately aged actors playing youthful roles. It’s generally a bad idea, but it can be done. But then the central theme must be something other than “Gosh, I’m going through changes.”

Maguire is not only too old, he always looks like he’s about to take a nap. He’s one of the least energetic actors I know, which is a problematic choice for a superhero.

So, too old, sleepy, and humorless. That’s not a good start. What he does have is the haunted angle. This Peter is grief-stricken and controlled by guilt. That makes him no fun at all to watch, but it does make a kind of sense and fits with all his crying. His extensive whining is another matter. If that was consistent, it would make a good After School Special or teen drama, if you happen to think those things are ever good. But this Spider-Man is also wish-fulfillment for fanboys who want their hobby to be taken seriously. Thus, Spider-Man is a sad, nerdish, outsider, without a girlfriend, as they saw themselves in high school, but he’s also cool. That last bit explains the outrage when the 3rd film does something that makes sense for the character (the Venom symbiot bringing to the surface Peter’s very uncool vision of what being cool is) but violates the fantasy.

As with Batman, my Spider-Men get graded on the company they keep and this Spider-Man does poorly. He’s got an empty Mary Jane and James Franco either not bothering to play anything at all or just playing James Franco as Harry. He’s got an insufferable Uncle Ben (yeah, I know this is a kid’s movie, but actually having him spell out the life lessons is way too much) and a stereotypically saintly Aunt May. A few of the father figures would be pluses, except they turn into villains, and the coincidences become silly. He does have a great J. Jonah Jameson (JK Simmons).

#3 Andrew Garfield (The Amazing Spider-Man Duology—2012-2014)

gar spider And back we go to Peter being everything. He’s a super-genius, spectacular engineer, and topflight tailor. Where does he get the materials for his webbing, or for…everything? He’s also just your average, everyday teen, who is handsome, agile, and cool. He also can be funny, but that part of his character vanishes for long stretches. OK. a cool Peter can work. Not in this story, but it can work.

To go with the kitchen sink approach, this Peter is also haunted. He doesn’t weep as often as Maguire’s did and his whining is down 30%, but it is always there just under the surface. To make up for that, he’s more prone to tantrums. I don’t know who is supposed to enjoy that. He also stutters in the first film, though only the first. I guess that was supposed to be their nod to Peter not being cool.

The twenty-nine-year-old Garfield is again too old to play a teenager, but he doesn’t look like he has to shave between classes as Maguire did, so that’s an improvement.

Garfield (as he keeps removing his mask—I guess it is uncomfortable) and the CGI look reasonable in the fight scenes. It is a substantial improvement technically, although none of his actual combats are any more engaging than those in the Raimi films.

As for the company he keeps, again, this Spidey doesn’t do well, without even a J. Jonah to up the average. Uncle Ben is again sanctimonious but he’d have been a bit better if he wasn’t living under the shadow of the previous version, so constantly saying things in awkward ways to avoid quoting himself. Harry is, shockingly, worse than the James Franco version and that takes effort. Turning into Emo Goblin doesn’t help. Gwen Stacey is a generic girlfriend character but she is a step up from the previous Mary Jane, so I won’t be too down on her.

#2 Shinji Tôdô (“Japanese” Spider-Man—1978)

shinji Todo Considering this came out so close to when the US TV show was canceled, it is bizarre how much better it is. Unlike Hammond’s Spidey who rarely wore his costume and did little with his powers besides climb walls, this Spider-Man shoots webs all the time, swings, and leaps around like…well, like Spider-Man. He also drives the Spider-car, and operates the Spider-robot. Hey, this is Japan, and this was a kid’s show.

So long after the fact, it feels like the Japanese armored, heroes & robots, children’s shows must have always existed, but they started in 1975. Stan Lee and Marvel saw those early shows and figured there was money to be made so they cut a deal: Spidey went to Japan and some Japanese armored characters showed up in Marvel comics.

Spider-Man is no longer Peter Parker (thank God; this is Japan). He’s Takuya Yamashiro, a motorcycle racer whose “astro-archeologist” father was killed by Professor Monster while investigating an alien spacecraft. He gains his powers from another alien, the last survivor of the planet Spider. That may sound silly, but not on the level of a radioactive spider imparting superpowers. He’s heroic, with a bit of the haunted quality without becoming maudlin.

The show was shot with a sense of style, had engaging characters, reasonable FX and… OK, it’s not great. It just is so much better than the American version of the time that it seems like great art if you watch one after the other. This one embraces its status as a children’s show. And the Japanese have always had a cooler notion of what is OK in a children’s show: people die and there’s a lot of really hot women showing enough skin that eight-year-old me would have been in heaven, and twelve-year-old me would have put up with the rest for that bikini scene. Our hero over-acts to epic levels, but I suppose if you are fighting guys wearing rubber shark heads, it isn’t too out of place.

Spider-Man has an annoying little brother as was common in daikaiju films of the era, but that’s made up for by his excessively pretty sister and girlfriend.

#1 Tom Holland (MCU—2016-?)

tom-holland-spider-man Yeah, there is no competition. Sure, the steady improvement in CGI helps a lot in the fights, but that’s only a tiny fraction of what puts Holland on top. Finally we get a Peter who is a believable teen. Holland is still older than Peter, but he doesn’t look that much older (fifteen is hard to accept, but I’d buy seventeen without a blink). Here we have a Peter that does seem like a nerd (yes, he did develop his webbing and shooters, but we blow by that as his current toys, and his suit are supplied by Tony Stark so it isn’t constantly rammed into our faces that he is the smarter than God). He’s got nerdy friends and nerdy hobbies. He again has an immature crush on a girl he doesn’t really know, but she’s an actual character and that’s perfectly fitting for a fifteen-year-old. He’s strongly moral, but in the way a good kid can be, not in a whiny or self-righteous sense. And like many teens who look to the future, he wants to do more while desiring validation for who he is and what he does.

What really blasts him ahead of the competition is that he is likable. All the previous takes on Peter have been unpleasant. Sure, Maguire’s and Garfield’s Peters were good people, but I wouldn’t want to meet them, and only support them vaguely because they are the good guys. Emotionally, they are not engaging (and for Maguire’s taciturn version, I would make sure he was off any party guest list). Holland’s Peter is someone I’d cheer for.

And finally we have a Spider-Man who is humorous. He makes jokes and quips like he couldn’t keep his mouth shut if he tried and all those lines are funny.

This is a complete Spider-Man. He’s kind, smart, anxious, hopeful, and a load of fun. I wouldn’t put him up with Christopher Reeve as a perfect version of his superhero character, but he’s close.

As for who he hangs with, his teen friends appear as amusing, layered teenagers. And yes, that’s a good thing. As is having Iron Man as a mentor, particularly as Tony needs to learn the lessons he is trying to teach. And finally, an Aunt May who doesn’t feel like a stereotype from the 1930s. She hasn’t had enough screen time to be fully fleshed out (there’s a deleted scene of her saving someone in the neighborhood I want to see) but what’s there has been good.

It’s nice when the best is the most recent as we’ll be getting more of him, and I’m looking forward to those films, whereas I’m just as glad #3, #4, and #5 fade away.

Reviews

Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)

Jul 122017

Adrian Toomes (Michael Keaton) has finally gotten a break with the contract to clean up the mess after the Avengers/Chitauri battle in New York, a break that is stripped away by the government and Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.). Searching for a new way to support his family, he and his team find they can take the alien tech they’d already picked up, and create weapons, allowing them to acquire more high tech and create a black market. Elsewhere in the city, Peter Parker (Tom Holland), living with his Aunt May (Marisa Momei), is waiting for a call from Stark to bring him back into the Avengers—a call that doesn’t come. Peter stumbles upon Toomes’s weapons and decides to deal with the problem on his own, with a little help from his high school friend, Ned (Jacob Batalon), which displeases Stark.

After Captain America: Civil War, it seemed that Marvel had a better idea of what to do with Spider-Man than anyone had had before. With Homecoming, they prove it. This first solo outing for Spider-Man in the MCU is exciting, funny, and captivating. It introduces new characters I’ll want to see more of and brings back a few old ones I can’t get enough of. The web-slinger has never been treated better.

It took six solo outings and three actors to correctly tell the story of a teenage Peter Parker. Tom Holland is too old, but he could pass for a high schooler, particularly compared to the twenty-seven-year-old Tobey Maguire and the twenty-nine-year-old Andrew Garfield, both of whom gave off a vibe somewhere between condescension and pedophilia. Not only did they get Peter Parker right, but the MCU team does a great job of revealing the high school experience and playing at the edges of teenage life. They apparently were inspired by John Hughes films. And in doing it so well, it brought up a problem for me: I don’t actually like teen movies. Not really. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is good, but for the most part, I just don’t care about teenage issues, and didn’t when I was a teenager. And that brought Spider-Man’s story down for me. He’s treated poorly by the school bullies, he has a crush on the school hottie and doesn’t know how to tell her, he gets in trouble with his teachers, and he has to sneak in at home—and I don’t care.

Luckily, Peter is funny. Was that so hard, people? Spider-Man has always been funny in the comics but five previous movies missed that, instead going for whiny. This time they nailed it. And they also nailed all his toys, with great web-shooting action scenes (helped by having Tony Stark supply his tech—Peter making his own costume was always a bridge too far for me).

And to make up for the youth of our hero, they gave me a villain I could love. Adrian Toomes is the opposite of Peter. He’s slipped out of middle age and has adult problems I understood and real world angers. He just wants to take care of his family, which is a more moving motivation than Peter’s naive view of good and evil. Toomes thinks he has been cheated and there is corruption at high levels by those who just don’t give a damn about the average guy. And he’s right, which makes this movie better than it could have been. Tommes isn’t reacting to unreal slights. He’s not only Spider-Man’s opposite, he’s rich, asshole Tony Stark’s opposite. He’s the villain, but one not only to respect, but one that most people could become—if alien tech happened to be around. Michael Keaton may have just become THE actor of superhero films as no one has created both a hero (Batman) and a villain and done them so well. Keaton has that everyman feeling. He’s a regular Joe. But he’s also got something darker inside, something that makes him a little crazy and a lot dangerous. It’s a great performance and it is nice to have a good villain in the MCU again (villains tend to be a weak spot).

The ads were misleading, implying it was almost a Spider-Man/Iron Man buddy picture. Downey Jr. and Jon Favreau (as his assistant Happy Hogan) have extended cameos and Gwyneth Paltrow has a sneeze-and-you’ll-miss-it part. But to make up for that, another Avenger shows up in three hysterical (if brief) scenes.

Spider-Man: Homecoming is another solid entry in the MCU franchise that can do no wrong. After the failures of The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014), and the poorly-aged and repetitive Spider-Man (2002), Spider-Man 2 (2004), and Spider-Man 3 (2007), we finally have a worthwhile film for Spidey. He’ll return with a horde of others in Avengers: Infinity War and I can’t wait.

FYI: Tom Holland and director Jon Watts have both stated that this is actually Peter Parker’s third MCU film. He appeared first as a child wearing an Iron Man mask in Iron Man 2.

Reviews, Superhero Tagged with: Four Reels

Ghost in the Shell (2017)

Jul 072017

In near-future Hong Kong, where cyber-enhancement of the human body is all the rage, Major (Scarlett Johansson), who was the victim of a terrorist attack, has had her brain placed into an android body by a blatantly evil robotics company. She’s intended to be the first in a long line of weapons, but for now she’s made a member of Section 9, a special police-type unit. An unknown hacker has begun killing the company’s scientists and Major, Batou (Pilou Asbaek), Aramaki (Takeshi Kitano), and the rest of the crew are tasked with catching the criminal. But all is not what it seems (at least if you didn’t realize the obviously evil company was evil) and Major begins to learn that her memories may be a fiction.

Ghost in the Shell (2017) is a remake of a Japanese anime, kinda. It in turn was inspired by a Japanese manga which has since been turned into an animated TV show (which was a procedural and my favorite of the lot) and several more films. Ghost in the Shell (1995) is a very peculiar anime, as action elements take a back seat to philosophical speculations on the nature of the mind, spirit, and body. And this is where my graduate work in philosophy kicks in to kill that older film for me as I cannot just “go with it.” Fans of the anime applaud the intelligent examination of important questions of identity. And me? You see, I studied identity in grad school and this isn’t a graduate level examination of identity. It isn’t an undergraduate level. It isn’t a sober man’s level. This is what you get when you run into a business major who is failing Phil 101 at a party and he’s really high. After gazing at his hand a while, the unfocused, juvenile insights that he spouts about identity—along with something about how the universe is in an atom and it is all so cosmic—that’s Ghost in the Shell. It is mentally deficient. Anime fans were so desperate for something deep in the genre that they just gobbled it up without noticing the emperor was naked.

Now I also studied physics, but I am not troubled by Star Wars and its impossible space ships and weapons, because Star Wars never stops to ramble on about how gravity works and mess it up. But Ghost in the Shell ‘95 does. It is a treatise on the meaning of self, written by a drugged fool to impress ten-year-olds, and my god is it dull.

To say that this work was a challenge to translate into a big budget action film is an understatement. The navel gazing of the original wasn’t going to work—the number of anime geeks who buy into the freshmen, general studies “depth” of that work is not nearly large enough for a “tent pole” film—so that had to go. But the faked intelligence was simply replaced by clear stupidity. Now, instead of going on and on and on about the intricacies of the ghost and getting nowhere, people just blurt out, “I/you am/are a robot” and “I/you am/are human” every few minutes. The film’s final monologue, given in voice-over, is so insipid I suggest ducking out early in order to miss it. Still, the brainlessness is an improvement as it wastes less time, but there’s no getting around how empty it is. Films should show, not tell, and both of these like to talk but have nothing worth saying.

The filmmakers jettisoned the plot as well; the replacement is filled with good material. Well, I’ll switch that to “potentially” good material as the movie feels the need to pay its respects to the anime and so gets distracted from what should be the plot. That means it never has time to do what films do best—get us emotionally involved. This was never going to be a clever film, but it could have been a moving one. But without the time to do that, the villain is too arch, the situations too simple, and the emotion lacking. Major’s trip to an apartment connected to her past gave a taste of what the move should have been. If they’d simple kept the theme of memoires instead of the whole “do robots have souls” bit, and cut out 50% of the first half so they could get to the real point, this could have been great. Well, I suppose a lot of films could be great if they were utterly changed.

So this version makes many, many references to the original; it keeps quite a few characters (their names and appearances, though not personalities), and multiple scenes (given a new context). But the real connection is the style. It looks exactly like the anime—except in live action. Some have complained that it is a rip-off of Blade Runner, which is true, but not directly. The anime ripped-off Blade Runner, and this copies the anime. Whatever the route, it is a good looking film, with robo-geishas, giant holograms, and neon mixed with grunge. It may not be original, but it’s snazzy.

The action is better than average and the cinematography is pleasant (I’m thrilled any time I find a modern big budget movie that uses color properly). Johansson is solid. After The Avengers, Under the Skin, and Lucy, she seems to be taking the acting path of Keanu Reeves in mastering kick-ass characters with something not right going on in their head. I wasn’t bored when the camera stuck with her. The rest of the cast do their jobs, not standing out positively or negatively, except for the Peter Ferdinando’s overwrought villain.

As for the often mentioned, white-wash casting of Johansson, it is far less troubling then in other recent productions like Gods of Egypt, Doctor Strange, The Great Wall, and Iron Fist, since it takes place in a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic future, and is not in Japan. This isn’t Tokyo though still Asian. Go south. It would have been nice for an Asian actress to get the part, but nicer for Iron Fist to be Tibetan.

Ghost in the Shell was never going to really work as long as they insisted on extensive connections to the previous incarnation. They dumped so much. They needed to dump more and make their own film. Instead its an ungainly shadow that never figures out if it is supposed to be dark or fun, emotional or intellectual (well, that one was doomed), direct or symbolic, or even if it was an action film or a drama. I can see so many marvelous films hidden within this one, but the one on display has no ghost.

Cyberpunk, Reviews Tagged with: Two & 1/2 Reels

Beauty and the Beast (2017)

Jul 022017

Belle (Emma Watson) becomes the captive of an enchanted nobleman (Dan Stevens as CGI) who must find someone to love him or remain forever a beast. The magical castle is filled with servants who have been transformed into clocks, candelabra, tea pots and the like (Ewan McGregor, Ian McKellen, Emma Thompson). Oh, come on, you know the story already.

I’m not opposed to new cinematic versions of previous successes, or better, failures. I just ask that there be some reason for them: a new take on the material. And a switch in style from animation to live action (well, CGI and live action) should meet my criteria. But in this case, it doesn’t. Here we’re in 1998 Psycho shot-for-shot remake territory, where it is all the same, but less.

Disney’s 1991 Beauty and the Beast worked as a great animated feature and a great musical. It had real heart and earned its classic status in record time. I suppose Disney feared messing too much with an artistic and financial triumph, and in the second they were right as this film has made a ridiculous amount of money. But artistically, they failed. Scene after scene mirror the animated versions, but lack the charm. Mostly it is simply a case that it worked better in a more abstract form, though the cast, none of whom are bad, can’t live up to the originals. McGregor and McKellen are actually quite good, but still can’t match Jerry Orbach’s and David Ogden Stiers’s voice portrayals. Emma Watson is too slight for the part. Her voice is nice, but “nice” is not enough to carry a musical. Emma Thompson does a reasonable rendition of the title song, but it lacked the emotion of Angela Lansbury’s. Only Josh Gad as Le Fou seems to realize that a broad take was the wise way to go. For a film about magic and monsters and talking furniture, it all is surprisingly staid.

The minuscule changes are unnecessary or annoying. The added songs are forgettable and supply nothing new. Making Belle’s father less quirky kills several jokes, though at least doesn’t create any large problems. The constant explanations on the other hand do create problems. Telling us that the servants deserved their fate because they weren’t helpful enough goes past blaming the victim and gives us an ugly philosophy. And having Belle teach reading to young girls and create a washing machine that is destroyed could, with very different writing, have made some meaningful statement about feminism, but as it goes nowhere is just embarrassing and screams “old guys pandering.”

An unpleasant portion of the potential audience went into homophobic conniption fits at news that Le Fou was gay. Discounting that this says more about their bigoted nature than the film, it was also a lot of wind about nothing. Le Fou is the same as he was in the animated version, which, when brought to live-action, makes his effeminate qualities more visible to those who tried to ignore them before.

If all copies of the 1991 version were lost, then I’d give this one another Reel, but as is, watch that one. If you want live-action, try Jean Cocteau’s La Belle et la Bête.

Fantasy, Reviews Tagged with: Two Reels

Logan (2017)

Jul 012017

In 2029, when most mutants have been wiped out, an aging, drunken Logan (Hugh Jackman) secretly cares for Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart), who’s suffering from dementia. Into their unhappy family comes Laura (Dafne Keen), a child obviously related to Wolverine. She is being chased by a team of villains who apparently hadn’t learned from the last time that putting adamantium into people with claws is a bad idea. Logan, against his desires, sets off to take Laura and Charles to a supposed safe zone.

The foundation of superhero films is adventure. Onto that is grafted comedy or action or social commentary, but we always start with adventure. Not Logan. Its foundation is the indie drama: the story of the never ending pressures and pain of modern life. It’s the ache of aging, but more, caring for the aged while you can barely take care of yourself. It is about a person who is neither particularly good, nor particularly smart, trying to survive day to day and not succeeding. It is the father forced to take care of his own father while refusing responsibility for his child.

And I’ve seen a lot of those and my God do they get tiresome. They are the darlings of the film festival circuit and are churned out by young filmmakers with little money and dreams of being artists. I suspect a good deal of the reaction to Logan comes from the average superhero audience member not being familiar with such movies. Well, I’ve never seen a superhero version before either.

Grafted onto that foundation is the second generation western, which is made literal by actually showing Shane on a TV in one scene. If you haven’t seen Shane, I promise you writer/director James Mangold has.

The advantage of this strange combination is that the western elements—aging gunslinger in a changing era, confrontations at the corral, the simply defined antagonists, the over-the-top violence and shootouts—liven up the normally drab and creaking indie bits. It’s easy to take a lecture on being responsible or an examination of dementia in the elderly when fifteen guys get stabbed in the head a few minutes later.

It also gives a superhero film a chance to do what they rarely can as adventure tales, which is actually be dark in the way life can be—instead of the faux-darkness that some play with—and to show the carnage inherent in the character. It’s been silly that for an entire franchise, the guy with daggers sticking out of his hands and whose entire personality is “he’s angry” has barely shed blood. This time, that brand of silliness is gone.

The disadvantage is these types of films are evaluated by different standards by the nature of their structure. The Magnificent Seven can play around with reality as long as the symbols make sense. And Captain America: Winter Soldier can have ridiculous plot elements because the bells and whistles and flashes hide them and allow for the big moments. An indie drama, however, has to make sense and match the real world, although bizarrely it allows for even greater stupidity as it is assumed the characters are making bad decisions. Still, it is much harder to ignore silly tropes and lapses that are part of the superhero genre when we’re dealing with indie drama. Why do the soldiers wait their turn to attack? Why do they get close enough for blades when they’ve got guns? Why do children trained as war machines not fight? (And why are those children “raised without human interaction” all calm and more reasonable than normal children.) And how, exactly, do we get a super secret organization of evil run by a super evil scientist with hundreds of disposable evil soldiers that somehow never makes the news—huh. I guess we can put Logan deciding to hide out at a casino in the bad decision category, but wow, it’s a bad decision.

We’re also stuck with another problem, which brings us back to metaphor. Westerns (and superhero films) are about symbols. The characters represent conditions and situations. They are icons. Indie dramas, however, are about real people. And Wolverine… He’s not much of a real person. He’s an adolescent boy’s fantasy. He’s rage and stabbing because those are “cool.” There really isn’t much else too him. Even amongst superheroes, he’s pretty dull outside of the kicking-ass thing. That’s why he spends most of his time in adventure stories leaning into simple action. He doesn’t have depths to plumb. This isn’t a flaw with the character. Shane (from Shane), Chris from The Magnificent Seven, The Man With No Name from A Fistful of Dollars, John T. Chance from Rio Bravo, and even Marshall Kane from High Noon aren’t complicated, fully human entities either. Sorry geeks, Logan isn’t deep, but then, he isn’t supposed to be. But that makes our indie drama really, really simple. The problems and realizations Logan comes to are juvenile in their simplicity, and would be laughed off the screen if there wasn’t someone’s brains being skewered around the same time. I am blown away that this film exists, that the powers that be let Mangold make an indie drama/western superhero film, but it is clear that the lead was chosen not because he was the best, or tenth best character for this story, but for the financial reason that Wolverine sells tickets.

On the plus side, you can’t say the violence is gratuitous or empty. The combat is savage, as it should be, and always has an emotional center. No meaningless punching here as in five Batman films and—well, let’s face it—most of the superhero genre. Every slash, every gunshot, every scream and death means something. I’ve complained about the fake bleakness of Bats v Supes and Man of Steel. Logan digs into that despair, but it earns it. Paradoxically, it is also more hopeful.

Hugh Jackman does a great job of giving the illusion of depth to Wolverine and this is the only time in an X-Men movie when Patrick Stewart has been allowed to show that he is a true actor. Still, the stand out is young Dafne Keen. She had the hardest job, to create a full, rich character with rarely a word, and mainly though her eyes, and she is amazing. It is Laura I cared about, and that is vital to the film.

Logan has the best plot of any superhero film, but the story is a bit shakier as it deals with icons being people. It is filled with theme but in the end, it doesn’t actually say that much. Aging is hard. Life and family can be painful. You have to live up to your responsibilities. What happiness there may be in life comes from those we love. Yeah, that’s all good stuff, and I guess making it the focus of a superhero film is remarkable, but it isn’t exactly edgy philosophy and I’m not sure the cost is worth it. The price, is that Logan isn’t much fun to watch. That’s fine, but then it needs to say a lot more than it is capable of. People will remember the plot, and it is a good send off for a couple of characters, but I doubt I’ll be watching it again soon, and I know it didn’t say anything I didn’t already know.

Reviews, Superhero Tagged with: Three Reels

Alien: Covenant (2017)

Jul 012017

The crew of a colony ship is awakened by an accident—except for their synthetic, Walter (Michael Fassbender), who was awake—and while making repairs, picks up a signal. The new, uncertain captain, who needs the approval both of the crew and of God, decides to follow the signal to its Earth-like world which might be a better fit for a colony than the one they were headed for. Once on the world—and taking amazingly few precautions for pathogens—they are attacked first by the goop from Prometheus, and then from rapidly growing monsters. They are saved, for the moment, by David (also Michael Fassbender), the only survivor from the previous film who is the only living being on the planet.

I would like to review Alien Covenant in a vacuum, but I can’t. Too much of what is on the screen is due not only to its cinematic predecessors, but to what went on behind the scenes. Besides, no one should start the Alien franchise with the sixth (or eighth, depending on what you count) entry. So, some background:

Ridley Scott’s Alien was not original in kind, borrowing heavily from several films of the ‘50s and ’60s, but no one had executed it like this before. It became a classic in both horror and space cinema, and when you put those words together, it became THE film. Its sequel, Aliens, directed by James Cameron, became a classic on its own by not repeating the original. It is perhaps the perfect sequel, switching genres to action. Alien 3, however, was doomed from the start. There’s plenty of flaws with the finished production that I could rip into and the production issues and arguments are famous, but even if it had been executed perfectly, Alien 3 could never have been great. Why? Because it was a return to Alien. It was once again SF horror. It was once again a small, isolated group of unskilled people in a confined area dealing with a monster. We’ve been there before. Alien Resurrection switched genres again, going for B-movie schlock and more or less succeeded, but by definition, there is no great schlock.

Ignoring the two Alien vs Predator films, Prometheus was next. Ridley Scott returned, but after rolling the material around a bit, he found he had little interest in vomiting up the same thing again. He was asked to essentially make Alien 3 and he rebelled and decided to make something new. Alien is a great film, but it is essentially themeless. Well, that had been early in his career. Now, Scott wanted to use the Alien universe to take a different look at the ideas he’d visited in Blade Runner: Who are we? His interest was in creator and created, parent and child, and the need we have to search out meaning in that relationship, and vitally, how it always goes wrong. Just asking the question harms you, and getting an answer only makes it worse. Notice in Prometheus, the only people who are happy and sane are the three members of the bridge crew who specifically don’t care about where they came from. Everyone else is unstable and miserable. Prometheus is brilliant, but flawed, and part of that flaw was the requisite Xenomorph material held over from Alien. It didn’t win over audiences, who didn’t like the philosophizing and not being spoon-fed answers, or fanboys, who just wanted to see the same old alien killing people thing we’d seen before. Scott’s plan had been to continue the adventure he set up in Prometheus, with Shaw and David going deeper down the rabbit hole and finding more mysteries and wonders and nightmares. But Scott said he got the message from the fans—although I wonder if it was the fans or the financiers who’s message he got. Whichever the case, he learned that what those fanboys wanted was a clear connection to the earlier film and the same chest-bursting, people hunting space horror we’d had before. So the word “Alien” was smashed onto the title and the movie he’d plan to make was replaced.

And the replacement is Alien: Covenant. To pacify the fanboys, all the tricky questions are now answered; we have answers to questions no one should have asked. Shaw was tossed aside, her story finishing off screen. And we have Xenomorphs again, doing exactly what was done eighteen years ago.

So, if you want Xenomorph action, then two things: 1—Here it is for you. And 2—What the hell is wrong with you? Damn, go watch Alien and Aliens. We’ve been there. It was done really, really well. We don’t need to do it again, ever. Sigh. Oh well.

Scott was clearly as interested in the same old alien attacks as I was. He tosses in the monster bloodshed with the same disdain for anyone looking for it as I have. “Here’s your bone. Now will you let me get back to something interesting?”

Luckily, he kept a bit of that interesting material in the film, and it involves David and Walter. Everything with Fassbender and Fassbender is marvelous and he eclipses all the other actors. I didn’t even list them or their characters above because they don’t register. Who lives and who dies just doesn’t matter. I didn’t know them, didn’t care to know them, and was happy to see them whittled away just so they’d stop taking up screentime. This is Michael Fassbender’s movie and he continues to show why he is one of our finest actors.

But with so much of the time wasted with monster attacks (the final one is particularly annoying as we know that it doesn’t matter), Scott never has a chance to dig into these brothers, their differences, and what it means to be free. It’s waved at us, tantalizing us about what might have been, but we end up with nothing that Scott hasn’t said before in Blade Runner and Prometheus. And it becomes hard to even care too much about what happens to those two. Walter is more enslaved and less concerned about being so than David. And David, well, as you should remember from Prometheus, has issues.

I’d hoped for some of the dark beauty of Prometheus and Alien, but except for a brief view of the Engineers’ city—before and after—and a marvelous use of Böcklin’s The Isle of the Dead which is sheer genus, it is visually drab. H.R. Giger is missed.

Alien: Covenant isn’t a bad picture. Measured again most space horror, it’s a very good one. Even the unnecessary Xenomorphs are reasonable—Scott ripping off himself, even without enthusiasm, is better than anyone else doing it. And Fassbender’s stuff is fantastic. But it could, and should, have been so much more. In trying to coddle fanboys, Scott ended up with a picture that isn’t completely satisfying to anyone.

Aliens, Horror, Reviews Tagged with: Three Reels

Christopher Nolan sucks.

Jun 242017

June 24, 2017

I’ve given him a pass up till now. There was a lot of good in his Dark Knight trilogy and Memento was genius. So, I didn’t cast him into the halls of Michael Bay after the amazingly imagination-free Inception (how do you get that little out of the concept? And Eugie rolled her eyes and sighed audibly on that dumbass top spinning ending) or the mindbogglingly stupid Interstellar that pretends it is clever. (Can we all get over Interstellar now? If your ending is a straightforward statement that love is the literal answer, then make The Fifth Element).

Yeah, Nolan’s movies are highly sexist and he’s got an eye for diversity that places him comfortably in 1954, but still, I let him off the hook. I blamed his protégé for for the garbage pile that is the DCEU (or was pre-Wonder Woman). But Zack Snyder simply learned his lessons well from his master. Sure, he took it to a new level, but that’s just a change in degree, not of kind. Dialog which is a collection of speeches, not actual human conversation? Nolan did it first. Using the wrong color pallet and incorrect shooting style and art design for the material? Again, Nolan did it first; Snyder just perfected it. Sacrificing story and sense for a “cool” moment? That’s all Snyder does, but yeah, Nolan was there first. And yeah, all those white dudes being super white dudes while the entire purpose of the one or two women who exist is to fall down, that’s pure Nolan. As for anyone being non-white… Move along.

Damn, I’ve been unfair to Snyder. He is horrible, but he’s just passing on what he was taught.

It was The Prestige, that I’ve finally watched, that broke the illusion that Nolan isn’t a hack. It’s an odd film that gets a strange amount of praise while also being on every list of worst twists ever. And yeah, its twist(s) is up there with “it was all the trees” and “the village is now.” But it isn’t the stupid (oh God, so very stupid) twists, but Nolan’s lack of ability—no, that’s wrong; it is lack of interest with character that pulls that film down. He just doesn’t give a damn if a character is any kind of human as long as he can point toward whatever “clever” idea Nolan wants to show off. Thus we have a Batman who is angry, but otherwise stable and speaks with cancer voice. Thus we have Matthew McConaughey giving endless speeches while yelling “Murph” around 50 times. Thus we have Brand (Anne Hathaway) crying in a corner because she’s a girl and that’s what girls do. And thus we have Angier and Borden, who are vague outlines of humans, who show no signs of human behavior, who again make speeches, and exist to point toward twists.

Snyder, gave us a dull Lois is falls down a lot and a single black man with no personality. He gave us a grim Superman who’s entire existence is being an unhappy Jesus image. Snyder was just following.

So yeah, just because Nolan has some films (some cinematically flawed films) that aren’t bad isn’t enough reason to let him off. He is what’s wrong with film at the moment. His stench lingers.

Thoughts

Life (2017)

Jun 182017

Six astronauts on the international space station—a medic (Jake Gyllenhaal), a Ryan Reynolds-like pilot (Ryan Reynolds), a handicapped biologist (Ariyon Bakare), a CDC safety officer (Rebecca Ferguson), a computer guy (Hiroyuki Sanada), and the captain (Olga Dihovichnaya)—recover a microscopic life form from a Mars probe and start to experiment with it. Naturally, it grows until it’s big enough to break out of the lab. Then it is: killer alien faux-squid verses panicked humans in a confined space with a slowly dwindling supply of humans.

I can’t condemn Life merely because it is a rip-off of Alien. There are dozens of films that are rip-offs of Alien. It has become a sub-genre. But Life also doesn’t get any points for originality. There’s not an unexpected moment. What’s surprising is that this is a 60 million dollar film. I expect this sort of thing to be made for a million or less and go straight to VOD or Netflix. That extra money buys a few name stars and some reasonable special effects, but I suspect it would have lost little if the space station had appeared tiny and the actors were all searching for their big break. But if your concern in your space horror film is that they really look weightless and that the station have a whole lot of compartments, then perhaps they’ve spent their money well.

Life isn’t an incompetently made film. It is made up of parts that are skillfully constructed. Everything looks good. All the actors know their craft. The monster is nicely designed and moves well. Except for Gyllenhaal repeatedly yelling to break quarantine, the dialog isn’t filled with awkward or ridiculous lines. It’s all… fine.

What is lacking is anything rising above “fine” and anything to set this film apart from the earlier clones besides budget. There’s no real attempt to give the characters personality. Ferguson and Dihovichnaya could have swapped lines and I wouldn’t have noticed. Sanada’s character’s wife just had a baby—that is his personality. The biologist can’t use his legs and likes experimenting; that’s it. Reynolds doesn’t even bother, just doing his normal Reynolds routine, which would be OK if he were the focus of the movie. Gyllenhaal at least shakes a lot and looks sick; at least I hope that was acting.

So, with no characters to cling to and no witty dialog (not being stupid doesn’t make it engaging), it is impossible to care. I knew exactly what was going to happen so it was neither tense nor scary. People die. Yup. Since everything is set from the beginning and none of it matters, it all goes on way too long. Every scene is twice as long as it needs to be.

My rating seems a bit harsh since I’m implying it isn’t worth a glance on free TV—something I usually reserve for severely flawed films, but this one gets it not because it is poorly made, but because there’s simply no reason to watch it. Find a couple of those cheaply made ‘80s clones with practical effects and a good deal of silliness. They may be flawed, but they have more charm.

Aliens, Reviews Tagged with: One & 1/2 Reels

My Best and Worst of Tom Cruise

Jun 072017

June 7, 2017

tom-cruise-mummy In “honor” of Tom Cruise staring in The Mummy, I came up with my favorite, and least favorite, films of Cruise. You see, Tom Cruise is not a good actor. That’s not something to debate. He’s horrendous. Now that alone isn’t a problem. You just need to be clever enough to choose films that fit the limited things you can do well. Arnold is also a bad actor, but he showed quite a knack (for awhile) for choosing roles that played to his strengths. Cruise has not done so well, apparently because he wants to ACT, which is odd as he also sometimes sleeps though his pictures. But that very fake intensity is the norm.

Now I can, and usually do, ignore Cruise. But with The Mummy he’s entering into my area, and his other forays into FSF&H (figure it out) have left some scars. And I love the old Universal Monsters. Its probably my favorite franchise. And I’d like to see those characters come back—not that I can figure what the hell the good people at Universal are planning (they are gothic monsters! Try a nice, intimate picture sans the world destroying CGI onslaught). But whatever they are trying to do, it shouldn’t involve Cruise. Which has made me think of him.

Now, Cruise has made a large batch of ho-hum films (Oblivion, Jack Reacher). These aren’t bad, but why watch them? I believe I asked myself that in the middle of watching Jack Reacher. And he’s made a few that seemed so stupid that I’ve never forced myself to endure (Lions for Lambs, Top Gun), so this can’t be an all encompassing list. But I’ve seen a lot. So this list will only include Cruise films I either liked, or disliked. Ones that don’t deserve that much attention I’m skipping.

A dishonorable mention to The Color of Money, which is bad, but not at the bottom of his many bad films, but needs to be mentioned as an unneeded sequel to a classic film. And another dishonorable mention for The Last Samurai. Why? Think about it.

The Good–Working Up to the Best:

Mission Impossible – It was hard for me to get past them ripping apart a very good TV show to make a less good film, but oh well, it’s a different medium, so I did get over it. And taken on it’s own, the first MI film is dim, but fun.

Confusion looks natural on him

Edge of Tomorrow – A light weight sci-fi (not “science fiction,” “sci-fi”) actioner that’s low on brains but has some good jokes and reasonable fights. Emily Blunt helps.

Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation – Not as enjoyable as Ghost Protocol, or as meaty, but for an empty popcorn movie, it works. Nice to keep Simon Pegg around.

Legend – Cruise is terrible in this and it is only partly his fault. He is miscast in a part incorrectly written. As a whole, I can’t defend Legend. But there’s lots of like about this marvelous mess of a film: Lili’s dance; everything about Tim Curry. Choose the directors cut. Second choice is the European cut. Skip the American theatrical cut.

Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol – The best of the MI films. Strange to get better with the 4th. It was exciting and took itself a little less seriously, which is essential for Cruise who almost always takes himself way too seriously. It’s not going to show up on any “best all time film” lists, but as the equivalent of a roller coaster, I like it.

Huh. This works. Who knew?

Knight and Day – Cruise has never been much of an actor, but he has charisma. In this film, he decided to use it. Drama is beyond him; why doesn’t he try comedy more? When he relaxes and dials back the ACTING, he’s charming. He gets to do all the stunts he seems to love while making fun of his normal work. And he and Cameron Diaz have chemistry to burn. Knight and Day is a fun spyromidy and Eugie and I watched it surprisingly often.

Interview With a Vampire – Cruise with charisma. Again, Cruise allows his natural charm to surface, but this time with a dark undercurrent and he’s quite good. Normally when I like a Tom Cruise movie, it is in spite of him, but this time it is actually because of him.

The Bad–Working Our Way to the Worst:

Loosing It – An 80s sex comedy with Tom Cruise and Shelley Long. What could go wrong?

Taps – I remember hating it. I can’t remember anything else about it, nor am I willing to rediscover why I hated it.

The definition of smarmy

The Outsiders – Group of young actors get together and act hard—really hard. They ACT right at you. You can smell the acting.

Mission Impossible III – “Hey, these MI movies are fun. Let’s stop that. We can make one that’s no fun at all.”

Vanilla Sky – “How about if we take a questionable, but interesting foreign film and dumb it down for Americans. And lets make sure the audience has no reason to care for the jackass lead character. Yeah.”

Cocktail – My god they made a movie out of this. And my god was it stupid. Why did I watch this one? It should have been at the top of my list to skip. But I saw it, with hyper (and at the same time smarmy) Cruise flipping bottles because it was really, really important.

All The Right Moves – Less a movie and more a collection of everything wrong about ‘80s cinema. “Hey! High school football is serious!”

Eyes Wide Shut – How can you make the nudity of such beautiful people so dull? I should want to see Nicole Kidman naked. The once great Kubrick was deeply out of touch, but even if he still had some of his old talent (he didn’t), making a film where the entire point is to frustrate the audience is a bad idea. On the other hand, Cruise’s attempt to act frustrated by pounding his fist into his open palm is really funny.

Tom, confused about his hand

Minority Report – Cruise and Spielberg join together again to abuse science fiction. What the hell were they thinking and why do they hate science fiction? The logic doesn’t work (internal consistency would be nice). The characters don’t work (unlikable and unrealistic). Nothing worked. I hate it when a SF film pretends to be smart but is this deeply stupid.

War of the Worlds – Even now, H.G. Wells is planning to return from the grave to kill everyone involved with mutilating his work. I don’t know why Spielberg and Cruise hate Wells so much but that hatred is palpable. Wells will have the last laugh. He’s coming! Yeah, yeah, it’s 9/11 fears demonstrated via Wells’s work. Isn’t that clever? No, it’s not. It’s annoying. The film does contain more blank gazing upward than any other film ever made. So…it has that. Can you like this film and also like science fiction? No. No you can not.

And now Cruise will take on a franchise that includes Frankenstein, The Bride, The Invisible Man, The Wolf Man, and Dracula. Some of my favorite characters and their ’40s versions were some of my favorite films. This can’t end well.

Lists, Thoughts

Ranking The Best Superhero Films

Jun 062017

June 6, 2017

We live in a wonderful age for superhero fans. When I was in college, none of the films in my top 10 existed, and only one of my top 20. I would only have been able to come up with two superhero films that were actually good. Now it is a snap to come up with twenty capes and cowls movies that are excellent and a good number of others that are at least worth your time. Much of this is due to the MCU which so far includes twenty films, all of them good. But it isn’t alone. The X-Men and DC claim a few spots. The golden age of Superhero films is now, and while I expect most of my sub-genre “Best of” lists to be static, this one will probably change a good deal in the next few years.
Starting at 18:

#18: Wonder Woman

Wonder Woman has too many dramatic speeches, too much slow motion/pauses, a few FX issues that take you out of the picture, and numerous other problems, and it doesn’t matter. I didn’t love the move. But I loved Wonder Woman.

And that’s what matters. I don’t know if Gal Gadot is a good actress, but she is a charismatic one, and she was born for this part. DC Comics-based films haven’t had her like since Christopher Reeve in Superman. She is perfect, and the role is written exactly right. Diana is friendly and good in the purest sense of the word. But she’s also cool—we’re talking Tony Stark level of cool. She’s innocent, but smart. She’s strong while also being very feminine. She’s sensitive but knows when a smirk is the proper response. She isn’t broken. She doesn’t have weird issues. She is a hero and one you’d want to meet. With a franchise film, what matters most is character, and they nailed it.

(Full Review)

#17: Captain America: The First Avenger

True blue but puny Steve Rogers undergoes an experimental procedure to transform him into a super soldier. His mission: Defeat the Nazi’s science wing, and it’s leader, The Red Skull.

This wasn’t the first attempt to bring Captain America to the big screen. And he’s been a fixture of animation for years. Problem is, he’s always been dull. So very dull. Until now. As before, they played him straight, with no apologies for his red, white, and blue, wholesome white bread nature, and succeeded where there’d been so much failure. Chris Evan’s put real heart into what could have been a stereotype, and the script released him into an old fashioned war picture (well, an old fashioned war picture that had laser weapons and a guy with a skull for a head). I cared about Steve Rogers. I cared about Peggy Carter and Bucky Barnes, and even Howard Stark. Can’t ask for more than that.

#16: Iron Man

When I first heard of the casting of Robert Downey Jr. for Tony Stark, I thought they were nuts. I couldn’t imagine it. Now I can’t imagine anyone else. I read the comics and see Downey Jr. He was given a great script with a truly well written and complicated character, and he was surrounded by exciting action, state of the art effects, and skilled co-stars, but this is RDJ’s film. Without him, the MCU would have been another franchise. With him, it became THE franchise.

The first film of the MCU has lost nothing and works nearly as well on repeat viewing as it did that first time in 2008. It shattered the whining, self-serious mold that had become the norm in superhero films, without falling into camp. It created a new mold that will eventually wear out its welcome, but not until we get ten or twenty more films like it.

#15: X2: X-Men United

Brian Singer revived superhero films with 2000’s X-Men and he did everything a little better in the sequel. The metaphor is still strong, and again, it is about character. Hugh Jackman as Wolverine and Ian McKellen as Magneto are again the heart of the picture but everybody is comfortable in their roles. The theme (the X-Men are always about theme first) has just the right amount of twisting, with good and evil mixed up. And the FX set pieces are a step above anything done before. The Nightcrawler attack is one of the best action moments ever filmed.

After only two truly successful superhero films before 2000, the first X-Men film repaired the genre, laying down what could be done. X2 solidified the superhero’s place in modern cinema.

#14: Superman

Sure, Superman has its flaws: The plot is a mess; the Krypton scenes are silly and the Smallville segment is plodding; Lex Luther’s scheme is ludicrous; it is both overly saccharine and overly camp. And none of that matters.

Superman was the first A-picture superhero film. It was (and is) beautiful. The SFX are excellent, yet never dominate. But those don’t matter either. It has three elements that trump everything.

First, there is a quirky Lois Lane personified by Margot Kidder.
Second, the heroic, uplifting score by John Williams that sells the epic nature of the film.
Third, and most importantly, there is Christopher Reeve. He is Superman. Blending strength with sensitivity, he charmed a generation.

The elements alone are not enough, or I’d be speaking of the great quality of Superman III. It is how you use them, and Richard Donner knew how. Superman pulls you in—at least it pulled me in—to its wondrous world. There may be problems, but those are for later. While watching, there’s nothing but a man who can fly.
(Full Review)

#13: Guardians of the Galaxy

Guardians is old fashioned space opera. It wouldn’t even count as a superhero film if it wasn’t in the same universe at the other movies. Like The Incredible Hulk, it isn’t too deep, and the plot is bare bones, but the characters are a kick and the action’s top notch. The villain, unfortunately is not, sharing the bottom slot of MCU bad guys with Malekith. Ronan is one dimensional as much as he has any personality at all. He’s angry and wants to kill stuff. That’s about it.
Forget all that: Guardians makes the best use of music of any film in the last decade. Come and Get Your Love somehow is perfect for kicking small alien critters. Really, it is.

#12: Hellboy II: The Golden Army

The second Hellboy film feels much like the first, but avoids the problem of so many sequels; it is neither a copy nor simply “louder.” The big shift is in mythology. Hellboy was Lovecraftian. Hellboy II is high fantasy immersed in faerie lore. Director Guillermo del Toro demonstrated his knack for the faerie world and its bizarre, beautiful, and dangerous creatures in Pan’s Labyrinth. Here, he takes it far further, introducing us to tooth fairies that will devour your bones, raven-masked guards, the angel of death with eyes upon her wings, and the denizens of the Troll Market. They are the stuff of nightmares, but the coolest nightmares, the ones that call to you.

Hellboy II: The Golden Army is funny, action-packed, well-made on every level, complex, and incredibly inventive.

#11: Avengers: Age of Ultron

Joss Whedon does it again, brilliantly crafting an extravaganza that’s really a character piece. No one can work with ensembles like he can, making each line count, slipping levels of meaning into every interaction so that it feels like all of the characters have had complete and compelling arcs, even though most only have a few minutes of screen time.

Sure, this second Avengers outing doesn’t rival the first, but then that’s a high bar. The action is a bit much (quite a bit—I’d have exchanged fifteen minutes of crowd saving and building breaking for a couple more group discussions) and a few of the characters are slipping into their clichés (Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, I’m looking at you). No problem. There’s lots of heart, lots of wit, and fabulous new characters to take up the slack. Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver, and Vision are exactly what the franchise needed, and I’d be content with an entirely new Avengers team as long as several of these new characters are a part of it. And Ultron, with his daddy-issues, is one of the best MCU villains.

#10: Deadpool

It broke every rule of superhero filmmaking, shredded the genre, and it all works. With a fraction of the budget of other action films, Deadpool delivers laughs and violence. Sure, the snark is fun, but what makes it all work is heart. Deadpool is by far the most romantic X-Men film, and probably the most romantic superhero film. He’s not trying to save the world (we’ve seen that enough); he just wants to get back to his girl. Everything matters because that matters.

The lesson to be learned is that superhero films don’t have to be whiny. They can be fun, and still matter. Unfortunately, the lesson Hollywood seems to have taken is that people like gore. Oh well.

#9: X-Men: First Class

The franchise looked dead after Last Stand, but First Class got it back on its feet. This prequel did the unthinkable: found a superior Professor X and Magneto than Stewart and McKellen. James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender are superb and their characters are compelling. Plus, Keven Bacon is a surprisingly good villain.

The metaphor has never been presented better, but where First Class really sings is in its tone, which perfectly balances action, tragedy, and humor.

#8: Hellboy

Hellboy is the best of Ghostbusters layered on the best of Men in Black added to the best of the X-Men, all swirled about the best of Lovecraft, decked out in a world that’s what a steampunk Tim Burton would design on his best day. It is a celebration of all things pulp and geeky and it is non-stop fun.

Perlman was the perfect choice for the immature red devil with a soft heart. He’s as good with the gentle moments as he is with the quips, and there are a lot of quips. I could praise each actor in turn as everyone is excellent, but besides Perlman, the compliments need to go to director Guillermo del Toro (Blade II, Pan’s Labyrinth). This was his dream project and it shows. Everything is meticulously done, creating the most beautiful comic book movie I’ve seen. Just gazing at the set dressing of the library is entertainment enough. This is a frenetic, funny, awe-inspiring, action extravaganza filled with blue, empathic fish-men, multi-eyed demon dogs, Nazi, zombie assassins, and gods and it’s wonderful.
(Full review)

#7: The Incredibles

If you like your superheros with a more family feel, The Incredibles has you covered. I’ve often heard it described as the best Fantastic 4 movie, and there is a good deal of truth in that. It is both funny and exciting from beginning to end, with multiple phrases that have entered every fan’s language (“No capes!” “Where – is – my – super – suit?” “You got me monologuing!” “And when everyone’s super…no one will be”).

PIXAR is the king of modern animation and The Incredibles is their best work. The trick is that so much animation is aimed at children where this film is aimed at families–there’s something for everyone.

#6: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

Guardians 2 is the first MCU film that’s a comedy, yet we don’t lose the characters in the humor. Every character gets his time to shine. This is done by not wasting a moment. Every joke also reveals something about the character. Every fight has an emotional core. Every action serves two, three, or more purposes. A violent and exciting fight between Gamora and Nebula is about the nature of sisterhood, while being a call back to Alfred Hitchcock, and also a frame for over-the-top humor, and a way to expand Gamora while completely changing our perspective on Nebula. Now that’s how you jam ten stories into a two hour movie.

Baby Groot is as cute as they come, the new characters all work, and there are dozens of repeatable lines. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 is a joyful film.
(Full review here)

#5: Batman

Batman is a gothic wonderland. It is a triumph of art design; on that basis alone, it is one of the best superhero films ever made. Other attempts at Gotham have either been tacky (Schumacher) or dull (Nolan). This is beautiful and twisted.

Beyond the look and feel of the film, so much is done right. There’s Danny Elfman’s stirring score. There’s the rapid pace and action, but with the focus always on character. There’s the humor. There’s a fabulously loony Joker.

And then there Michael Keaton, who nails the two sides of the character, Bruce Wayne and Batman. His Batman is dangerous and frightening in a fundamental way. There’s something unhinged about him. Bruce Wayne is even better. This is the only Wayne I can believe would choose to become Batman. I could believe him choosing to wear a mask made of human skin and carry a chainsaw too. As an actor, Keaton has a talent of being an every man, but at the same time, he can embody insanity and ruthless dedication. That is Batman.
(Full Review)

#4: Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Where Captain America: The First Avenger felt like a 1950s war movie, The Winter Solder feels like a 1970s spy thriller, just with a lot more exploding flying ships. While some MCU films have aimed low and avoided heavier thematic elements, the second solo outing for Captain America goes for broke, and wins. The story is complex, but makes sense and is easy to follow. Steve Rogers goes through substantial changes, and lets us examine the meanings of freedom, safety, and tyranny, though him, and how these three things overlap in uncomfortable ways. The movie does all that while delivering an almost excessive amount of action and slipping into buddy movie mode from time to time. It also introduces a new hero in Falcon, as well as two of the better villains.

I didn’t think Marvel could pull off one good Captain America movie. Two was a shock. It seems, with good writing, clear directing, and the right star, an old fashioned hero can work in his own time, and in our times, commenting on both.

#3: Thor: Ragnarok

Thor: Ragnarok is the brightest, fastest paced entry in the MCU. It’s one of the best, and for pure joy, it is the best. It squeezes as much emotion—and as much action and humor and meaning and plot and sheer fun—as possible into two hours.

After “comedy” the word I’d use to describe this film is “METAL.” And I don’t mean hair METAL or even Metallica METAL. I’m talking Dethklok METAL. This is the most METAL movie ever made. Ground zero is Led Zeppelin’s Immigrant Song—the phrase “Hammer of the Gods” is used literally. Ragnarok then adds the imagery from a metal-head’s dreams. This is gods and monsters and trolls and devils. Shot after shot could be pulled for an ‘80s album cover. This is head-banging, devil-horn signaling METAL. That means that this is epic in a beautifully over-the-top fashion and isn’t embarrassed about it. The battles aren’t introspective narratives; they are heroic poems of mystic legends. The genius of Ragnarok is its ability to weave the self-deprecating comedy with a larger than life, legendary saga. (Full Review)

#2: The Mark of Zorro

Yes, Zorro is a superhero, and no, that doesn’t let in every adventure hero. He has skills beyond human capabilities, he wears a costume complete with a mask, he has a secret identity, and he fights for goodness. If Batman is a superhero, then so is Zorro.

The Mark of Zorro is just pure fun. Humor is responsible for much of that, but at least as import is pacing. It is hard to think of any film with better pacing. There is not a slow moment. Humor flows into chases which flow into romance which flows back to humor then on to sword-fights. No time to get up for popcorn.

The cast is universally excellent, with Basil Rathbone creating another of his fine villains, and Tyrone Power in the best role of his career. (Full Critique)

#1: The Avengers

Was there any doubt what film would end up on top? The Avengers is a near perfect action film. Whedon directs his over-sized ensemble cast as if he’s directing a symphony: a complicated flow yet with everything in its place. It seems like it is all about the action, and there is a lot, but it isn’t. It’s all about the characters. Everyone has their moment to shine.

The re-casting of Bruce Banner with Mark Ruffalo was spot on, giving us a thoughtful but troubled scientist. Better still was the crafting of The Hulk. I’d never cared much for the character, and my wife was even more disdainful—and we were won over. Though no one stood out as much as Tom Hiddleston’s Loki. After The Avengers, he is arguably the most popular character in the MSU, vying with Tony Stark for the title. He’s dangerous, but also funny and sympathetic.

With such care given to the dialog, to character development, and to emotional depth, it is surprising how Whedon is happy to go full-on fanboy and give us some of the greatest “wow, cool!” moments ever. Several of these involve The Hulk, who seems unable to avoid punching Asgardians. I’ve never heard so much cheering in a theater.

Lists, Thoughts

Wonder Woman (2017)

Jun 022017

Diana (Gal Godot), princess of the Amazons, is just discovering that she is different from her sisters when pilot Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) pierces the bubble that hides the island and crashes. He’s followed by ships full of Germans, thus bringing WWI to paradise. Steve has vital information on evil “Dr. Poison’s” newest lethal gas. Diana assumes that the god of war must be behind the bloodshed, so they set off together, with slightly different plans on how to end the war.

There’s been a lot of talk about this film in the days before its release, so let me get the big questions out of the way.

Is Wonder Woman good? Yes.
Is this the best superhero movie ever? No. Not by a mile.
Is this the best DC-Snyder-verse movie? Yes, by ten miles and a walk around the park.
Was Gal Godot the right pick for Wonder Woman? Oh yes.

So, if it isn’t the best superhero movie ever—as some reviews have claimed, and as its early Rotten Tomato score indicated—where does it fall down? In the expected places. At times it tries far too hard to be epic. As Mal would put it, there’s a lot of speechifying. We also get the “everyone is stupid” problem so common in films. If people would take just a few minutes to explain things to Diana, a lot of things would go better and easier. But apparently everyone thinks that ignorance is just fun. Plus if you can’t figure out the big reveal an hour before it happens, you don’t deserve to see movies. There’s also a hold-overs from the Snyder films (Man of Steel and Batman v. Superman): the excessive use of slow motion/stop motion in fights. And the third act drags. Plus there’s no attempt to make any sense out of Greek gods in the universe (the comics fall down on that one too). And I should mention the special effects. Generally, they are good, but a couple times Diana suddenly becomes a cartoon. I haven’t seen anything that bad in a big budget superhero movie since Spider-Man, and that was fifteen years ago.

To counter those numerous problems, we’ve got a nice trade off between serious and light moments. We have a theme with some weight to it on the nature of man, war, love, and peace. We’ve got an above average plot for an action film—not brilliant, but grading on a curve, it is on the positive side of the hill. The acting from everyone (when they aren’t speechifying) is solid, with a few extra points going to David Thewlis. And while Chris Pine is doing the same thing he does in every film, it fits nicely in this case.

But here’s the thing: None of that matters. You see, Wonder Woman, the film, is—at best—a good movie. Not great. But pretty good. I didn’t love the movie.

But I loved Wonder Woman.

And that’s what matters. I don’t know if Gal Gadot is a good actress, but she is a charismatic one, and she was born for this part. DC Comics-based films haven’t had her like since Christopher Reeve in Superman. She is perfect, and the role is written exactly right. When was the last time you liked a DC film character? Not liked watching them in a film, but liked them? Sure you liked The Dark Knight, but it wasn’t because you really cared about Bruce Wayne. I enjoyed watching Keaton in the Tim Burton films, but I didn’t love the character. I was interested in him—intrigued even. But I held little affection for him. It has been thirty years since DC managed this. This is the superhero that’s been missing.

Gadot and director Jenkins combine all the elements in a way that’s been lacking. Diana is friendly and good in the purest sense of the word. But she’s also cool—we’re talking Tony Stark level of cool. She’s innocent, but smart. She’s strong while also being very feminine. She’s sensitive but knows when a smirk is the proper response. She isn’t broken. She doesn’t have weird issues. She is a hero and one you’d want to meet.

With a franchise film, what matters most is character, and they nailed it. If I ran Warner Bros, I’d be junking other Snyder films to get everyone working on Wonder Woman 2 and Wonder Woman 3. Maybe those films will have weak plots and be filled with problems, but they will be about Wonder Woman, and that’s the important thing. People will go to see her. I’ll go to see her. DC finally has the character they need, the character Superman should have been in the last two films. She might just save the DC Snyder-verse.

Yes, the lone female superhero is here and she rules.

Reviews, Superhero Tagged with: Four Reels

Ranking Emerson, Lake & Palmer Albums

May 212017

May 21, 2017

Yeah, I know. No one needed this any more than they needed my list of Top 10 Kate Bush songs. But here it is anyway. A few thoughts first.

I think of art rock—as opposed to the larger category of prog rock—as a fusion of styles. It is rock and classical, with a touch of jazz and folk. Nowhere is that more evident than with ELP. Yes and Genesis blended the styles together. ELP did not. They just whipped them down and said, “lets go.” They’d cover symphonic pieces, sometimes as driving rock tunes, but sometimes as straight classical music. They’d pause one form to start another before drifting into a third. Lake would sing a folky ballad and then Emerson would play a concerto. And then why not a jazz tune? Your expectations were of little importance, which is how it ought to be.

The name, Emerson, Lake & Palmer was fitting as this was never a group, but three separate artists. They didn’t play WITH each other, but AT each other. I kept waiting for them to kill each other. And the power of their music came from that competition. Each made the others stronger.

How you feel about art/prog rock is a little like how you feel about Dr Malcolm from Jurassic Park. Me, I hate that dude.

“…but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn’t stop to think if they should.”

I just wanted someone to say, “Malcolm, shut up.” Well, standard music critics, mainstream radio fans, and punk rockers were Malcolm, whining, “You musicians are skillful and talented enough to do all that stuff that I don’t understand, but you haven’t considered if you should.” Musically, the response from Genesis and Yes was, “Come on guys, we’re doing are own thing.” But ELP’s response was “Fuck off. We do want we want.” Every album (well, the first six) were clear, loud statements. There’s no shyness in ELP. They are giving the finger to the music establishment and wanted to make sure everyone knews it. Sometimes subtly is nice. Sometimes its dull. ELP had no conception of subtly.

The most self-assured of art rock bands died from trying to do too much. They reached the end of an artistic road, so set off with something new. But that something new didn’t go well with their perfectionism and touring. Emerson insisted they take an orchestra along and they all needed truck-loads of equipment if they were going to recreate their latest studio album. Even with 70,000 attendees, you can’t make money that way and everyone got pissed off. And that was that. They got back together from time to time over the years, but the edge was gone.

So starting with #12:
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